Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System-Chapter 584: Black Skull. (Part Sixteen)
"Are you sure about this?"
"..."
"Once this is done, you’ll be 90% bionic. Few live a year after that point."
"..."
"Fine. suit yourself."
A long sigh escaped the surgeon, and he turned around to face his tool.
"I advise that you turn off air filtration." He said, a mechanical arm slowly lowering a gas mask into his hand. "You might be able to shut down your pain receptors, but it is still for the better if you don’t watch this part."
Dante complied, and the gas mask was placed on his face. As the odd scent of the anesthetic gas played with his mind, he closed his eyes and gave in to its embrace.
~[ ]~
CLANK... CLANK... CLANK...
The ever-present city noise gradually faded into the background, and only the sound of hard metal could be heard hitting the cold concrete. The rhythm was that of a walk, one slow step at a time. Few had the gall to walk around with soles made from alloy, and even fewer enjoyed theirs. As the people turned to its source, their noses upturned, a sudden realization struck them as they lay on it. On him.
He walked in the middle of a road emptied by his presence alone. Some took sudden turns when they saw him, others abandoned their vehicles and just ran, horror painting their faces as if they had seen the devil himself. And see the devil they did. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎
Two red horns rose from his head, pointing at the sky like a pair of bloodied knives. No one could tell whether the red covering his face had always been there, or if it was painted by the blood of his latest victim, the head of whom was dangling from the fingers of his mechanical hand. The head swayed gently, and the red still dripping from it left a fading trail, one drawn beside a long set of footprints that couldn’t have been made by a human.
The black lines on the man’s left cheek gave the impression of his flesh rotting, revealing the bone and teeth underneath. It was the mark of the local gang, a symbol of fear that turned people docile in the face of whatever evil they might witness. On this day, however, it turned into the mark of the damned—a sign that its owner had been selected for extermination.
Despite the macabre scene, there was no yelling or screaming. People just took off running without uttering a sound. The news had already spread through the streets of Red Hill, and so everyone who witnessed the red demon knew to get out. Their fear of the creature did most of the work, but the disaster it attracted was much worse.
The roars of raging engines grew louder, and the large alloy beasts appeared from every corner, crashing into the cars that had been left behind. The red demon came to a halt as a swarm of thugs poured out, each carrying weapons heavy enough to be considered machines of war. Some even wore modified power suits to help with the load, and they all had the same look on their faces as they finally stood before the enemy that required such firepower.
Raising its head, the red demon regarded them with the permanent glare on its blood-soaked face. Its right arm moved, swinging gently to the back before returning to the front. Its fingers uncurled, and the strands of hair slipped from between them. The head it was holding flew in a gentle arc before hitting the asphalt, rolling a few times before stopping at the feet of another man marked for death, this one with a tattoo that covered half of his face.
Looking down, the Black Skull sergeant was met with the horror eternally frozen in the eyes of his dead comrade. A chill ran down his spine as that horror rubbed on him, but the next instant, a raging fire ignited in his heart only to vanish an instant later.
Overcome with rage, the man raised his head and opened his mouth wide, intending to shout at his men to open fire, but all that came out was a sudden groan, then a mouthful of blood. As his brows slowly rose, he looked down at his rest. He saw a hole that had never been, and through it, a set of claws peered out, slowly wrapping around a pulsating lump of flesh.
The claws retracted, but not to return the still beating heart into its place. Having lost all his strength, the sergeant collapsed onto his face, settling right beside the severed head. A moment of calm followed as blood poured around him, then a single click resounded broke the silence, and all hell broke loose.
Guns fired from every direction with no regard for who might get shot. They all targeted the same point, aiming at the red demon, who just stood still and let them do it. None of the bullets seemed to reach it. Everything passed through as if the entity wasn’t standing among them, leaving them to shoot at a fading projection.
An arm went flying, drawing a crimson arc as its owner screamed. A head followed, the body it was attached to continuing to fire a rifle even as it fell to its knees. A few cyborgs activated their SREs in the hope of keeping up with the speed of their target, but all that did was allow them to watch as more of their comrades got dismembered.
The stupid ones saw the writing on the wall and turned to make a run for it, but those with working brains knew there was no point in doing that. The red demon rose from the depths of hell and came to drag them down to its bottom. Many from their gang had faced that fate just this morning, and many would follow. Black Skull was done. Black Skull was over.
The slaughter continued, and no amount of fighting back was of any help. Even the Level 3 cyborgs who joined the fight were quickly disposed of, their bionics ripped from their bodies while the others watched. Every now and then, someone would try to beg for their lives, but that only seemed to make them a priority target, teaching others that crying wouldn’t help.
The red demon was fast—fast enough to end the fight in under a minute, yet it took much more than that before the last of its victims fell. Anyone watching from the side would tell you that it was, contrary to how things might have looked, taking its sweet time. It ensured every last one of the Black Skulls felt it when their lives were taken, and those who had been particularly unlucky were forced to experience blinding pain until death came to claim them.
The carnage was witnessed by no one but those who met their end at the clawed hands of the red demon. It was one of many that took place that day, yet not a single recording was created or shared. As always, the authorities elected to arrive once everything was over, and the only evidence they found of what happened was the numerous corpses that had been treated at the hands of a butcher. The red demon was always gone by then, and with no clues about its identity and nothing to prove that it had been, even those who claimed to have seen it no longer believed their own eyes.
